New research by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich could bring high-end LCD colour capabilities to LCD and TV screens.

Arrays of thousands of tiny "super prisms" controlled by robotic muscles are able to manipulate light to reproduce the full spectrum of colours on screen, altering the brightness of each coloured subpixel to create a palette of millions of different shades.

Currently displays are limited as to how many colours they can reproduce. This is because the three primary colours - green, blue and red - used to reproduce on-screen colour are fixed. The new system is not limited to this three colour system.

The Zurich team behind the research believes the method will make it possible to get closer to reproducing every colour we see in the real world. The technology is described in detail in a BBC report.

The work was carried out with Professor Andreas Stemmer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and is published in the US journal, Optics Letters.